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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of a Lady, thought to be Catherine Fenn 1623 oil on panel Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide |
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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of Richard Zouche 1620 oil on panel National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| attributed to Cornelius Johnson Portrait of a Lady ca. 1620 oil on panel Geffrye Museum, London |
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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of a Gentleman 1620 oil on panel Holburne Museum, Bath |
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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of Edward Holte 1635 oil on canvas Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (West Midlands) |
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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of future King James II as a child 1639 oil on panel National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of a Lady in Blue ca. 1639 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of Sir William Brockman 1642 oil on canvas Maidstone Museum, Kent |
"Cornelius Johnson (born Cornelius Janssen van Ceulen) is the forgotten man of seventeenth-century art, even though his paintings – all of them portraits – are found in many British museums, galleries and country houses. He was prolific and successful but, as a painter of Charles I's court, had the bad luck to be overshadowed by the superstar Anthony van Dyck, and then to have his British career halted by the civil wars. Born in London in 1593 into a Flemish/German Protestant family, Johnson probably trained mainly in the northern Netherlands, returning to London by early 1619 – the date of his earliest portraits. Based in Blackfriars, Johnson painted gentry, aristocrats, lawyers and merchants, including members of London's Netherlandish community. He meticulously recorded their fine dress and lace collars. In 1632 he was appointed 'picture-drawer' to Charles I, producing a few small-scale royal portraits, although the main royal commissions went to Van Dyck. Johnson was the first British-born artist consistently to sign and date his paintings, although his signatures varied over the years. He worked on every scale, from the miniature to the big group portrait.
In late 1643, following the outbreak of civil war in Britain, and the collapse of court patronage, Johnson and his family moved back to the Netherlands. There, he joined the painters' guild in the thriving coastal city of Middelburg in Zeeland, where he had friends from the London Dutch community. In 1644 he was commissioned to paint Middelburg's burgomaster. Johnson and his wife subsequently lived in Amsterdam, and he also worked at The Hague, where he produced his largest surviving portrait, a civic group depicting The Hague magistrates. Early in the 1650s the Johnsons settled in one of the best streets in Utrecht, where he remained a leading portrait painter until his death. He was buried in Utrecht on 5 August 1661. His only surviving son, also named Cornelius, who had been born in London in 1634, assisted his father, and continued to work as a painter in the Netherlands, dying in Utrecht in 1715."
– biographical notes from the National Portrait Gallery, London
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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of a Lady ca. 1644 oil on canvas Glasgow Museums |
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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of William Hamilton, 2nd Duke of Hamilton and John Maitland, 2nd Earl (later Duke) of Lauderdale 1649 oil on canvas National Trust, Ham House, Richmond-upon-Thames |
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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of Luise Henriette von Oranien 1650 oil on canvas Siegerlandmuseum (Germany) |
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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of a Lady ca. 1655-56 oil on canvas Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of Anna Maria van Schurman 1657 oil on panel (grisaille) National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Cornelius Johnson Portrait of Madame Tulp 1660 oil on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| attributed to Cornelius Johnson the Younger (son of Cornelius Johnson) Portrait of Cornella Craen van Haeften ca. 1663-78 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |